Empowering Electric and Gas Utilities with GIS

Utilities provide the electric and gas that produce the energy required to run businesses, cook food, and heat and cool homes. Empowering Electric and Gas Utilities with GIS, a new book from ESRI Press, proves that geographic information system (GIS) technology can be a strong ally in every aspect of that mission.

"Utilities are awakening to the dramatic impact a GIS can have on their overall operations," says author Bill Meehan, who provides three dozen examples of multifarious ways that utilities from Burbank, California, to Beirut, Lebanon, use geospatial technology.

Meehan says utilities typically turn to GIS to map a network such as the company's electric lines or gas pipelines. But the technology's applications go far beyond that to include processing work orders in a timely fashion and quickly spotting trouble such as the location of downed power lines or gas leaks.

Meehan also uses real-world scenarios that face a fictional utility he calls AnyTown Energy to show how a GIS works well across the enterprise to

* Provide better customer service.

* Enhance decision making and lower operating costs.

* Locate/Prevent outages.

* Restore power and gas.

* Manage assets such as wires, poles, and transformers and minimize risks such as power outages and gas leaks.

* Conduct planning, design work, and engineering for the utility.

* Find the best sites for new plants including solar power systems and wind farms.

* Improve logistics such as keeping track of work orders and crews.

In scenario after scenario for AnyTown Energy, whether it's quickly finding the cause of a gas leak or providing electricity to a bank's new ATM, GIS will save time, money, and energy, according to Meehan. He concludes the book with a detailed business case for an enterprise GIS for AnyTown Energy that would improve the utility's performance and benefit customers, shareholders, employees, and management. The book also provides a template for those already working with GIS who want to expand its use.

"GIS is more than simply producing the standard operating maps utilities have been so used to dealing with," says Meehan, director of worldwide utility industry solutions for ESRI. "GIS is a critical element, either directly or indirectly, in nearly every electric and gas utility workflow."

Meehan says he wrote the book to help utilities improve their operations in routine and dramatic ways. He drew on his experiences as vice president of electric operations at NSTAR, Massachusetts' largest investor-owned electric and gas utility, where he says he was the "champion, visionary, and manager" of the company's comprehensive GIS.

Empowering Electric and Gas Utilities with GIS (ISBN 9781589480254, 280 pages, $34.95) is available at online retailers worldwide, at www.esri.com/esripress, or by calling 1-800-447-9778. Outside the United States, contact your local ESRI distributor. Visit www.esri.com/distributors for a current distributor list. Interested retailers can contact ESRI Press book distributor Ingram Publisher Services.

Source: www.esri.com/distributors